Reading Books

I just realized I forgot to remind the class to bring their reading books home tonight! If you happen to see this, do not worry about the reading for tonight. 

Notes for this week

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!
We are getting ready for another exciting week in 2nd grade. I just wanted to let you know of a few things coming up at Natcher and in our classroom.

Homework
I will be sending home four math pages this week. Students can complete one page a night for two star homework!

I am always supportive of families working on extra school work at home or simply acting interested in academics. I wanted to inform everyone of our weekly objectives in case you want to quiz them when they get home!

ELA Focus
- Identifying the subject (who) and predicate (what) of a sentence.
- Finding the main idea and use details from the text as support.
At Home:
Ask students to write sentences and underline the predicate or subject.
Check student work to make their "complete sentences" are really complete.
Have students create a graphic organizer/web of the main idea and details of their Leveled Reader.

Math Focus

- Understand that the three digits of a three-digit number represents amounts of hundreds, tens, and ones.

- Read and write numbers to 1,000 in standard, word, and expanded form.

Ex: 600 (standard form), six hundred (word form), 600+1=600 (expanded form)

At Home:

Please allow your students to work on the math pages I sent home this week. The types of questions on these papers will very similar to the questions on our unit test.

Science Focus

- Identifying the steps to pollination.

- Labeling the parts of a plant.

Spelling List #1

1. stop

2. strap

3. brave

4. ask

5. mask

6. nest

7. hand

8. brave

9. clip

10. stream

11. twin

12. breeze

13. state

14. build

Spelling List #2

1. fragile

2. shrunk

3. brunch

4. sphere

5. challenge

6. cluster

7. while

8. spruce

9. special

10. schedule

11. throne

12. friction

13. sphinx

14. breathe

Also, I will be gone for a training on Wednesday of this week. I will prepare my students for the substitute but please encourage your students to be on their BEST behavior. I am very nervous for my first sub!

Homework Questions

So, I wanted to thank everyone for being so patient while the 2nd Grade team and I continue to work out the kinks of "Star Homework." I know it is something completely different! I am very excited to implement it in the classroom. I have already seen the motivation and excitement my students are getting about doing their homework! I know...it's crazy! 

Star Homework Q/A

Q: What do they HAVE to do?

A: Read for 20 minutes every night! 

I recommend (as it is listed) that students read their Leveled Reader (a small reading book they will receive from me each week) twice a week and our weekly classroom story (inside our Reading textbook). If your child forgets their Leveled Reader or their textbook. No big deal! We read both the LR and the textbook story in class each day! Let your child read a book or story from home if they don't have any materials from school. If there are no books at home, please let me know so I can send your child home with a few to choose from! 

Q: What is optional? 

A: Spelling, Math, Writing, 

The options will change each week! So, I am hesitant to tell you these will always just be options. For now, they are options! This means if your student does extra math, spelling, or writing outside of school they will be able to claim "two star homework." I have been sending home a Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe worksheet for homework the past two weeks. Students can complete as many squares as they would like anytime throughout the week. Let me know if students need another spelling worksheet or if they lose their spelling word list. I will be happy to send home another one! 

Currently in math, I am working with groups of students based on their level. Students will work in 20 minute rotations (math centers, teacher station, and independent work). No one will have math work sent home with them this week. It will be completed in class during their independent work time. Whatever is not finished gets carried onto the next days independent work. Eventually, they will have required math work at home, but not yet! If you would like to work with your child on their math skills at home, GREAT! I always send home a weekly newsletter that should inform you on what we are covering in math that week! Currently, we are working on place value, addition facts, and noticing patterns on the hundreds chart (skip counting and odd/even numbers). I have also told my class they are allowed to take home their math workbook and complete pages inside that for "two star homework." 

Q: What are all the stars about?

A: Each week we set a class homework goal. Last week our goal was 180 stars. Each day I went through homework folders and checked student work. I ask all students who completed three star homework to stand up. We calculate how many stars we have. Those students receive a 10 Finger Wooo (ask your student to explain). I ask anyone who completed two star homework to stand up. Those students receive a 5 Finger Woo (ask your student to explain). We calculate how many stars we have. I ask anyone who completed one star homework to stand up. We calculate our total for the day. On Friday if we have reached our weekly goal, the class receives extra recess! 

I hope this clears up some questions you might be having! Please let me know if there is anything I need to add or clarify! 

Hard Work

We have just finished our first full week! Ms. Elliott's class has been working very hard! 

This week in reading we focused on identifying the character and setting of a story. We have read The Twin Club, a story from our textbook, and Flat Stanley a book study during RTI Reading. I taught the kids how to act like CRAZY PROFESSORS and dramatically act out a summary of the story. Ask your student to summarize a story using their crazy professor skills. You will see quite a show! 

I am very excited to get my students involved in our book studies this year. Each week we will focus on one short chapter and complete some fun activities to go along with the book. This week, we read Flat Stanley. Your child was able to make their own Flat Stanley. This very "flat" young boy is known for traveling around the world because he is so flexible! We will be sending our classroom Stanley off to Lexington in a few weeks! We identified the character traits of Stanley by creating a Twitter page! Well kind of...

We discussed how Stanley felt, where he was going, and what he might be thinking. Then, we tweeted about it! Here is @FlatStanley twitter page. We had some very clever tweeters! 

A couple student responses: 

"AHH! I am so flat!"

"Yes! I'm out of this tree #freedom"

We have also been working on many skills in math! Odd and even numbers, place value, and addition! One of the many games I am excited about showing my students is one they really enjoyed, Super Speed Math. Students are paired with a partner. They have one minute to answer as many addition facts as they can. They record their stopping spot on their test paper (I sent a copy of these home today, green sheet of paper). I reset the timer and the next partner goes. If a student misses a problem or is having trouble, their partner will "help" because they are looking at the answers on the back! I love this game because it teaches foundational math skills that our kids are going to use FOREVER. It is different than most timed math quizzes because it is not a quiz at all. Our kids are trying to beat their own personal records! There are five levels to Super Speed Math. When students finish the addition facts, they move on to level two, subtraction facts. Please allow your child to practice their math facts at home when you have time! Asking them questions out loud is much more beneficial than writing problems on a piece of paper for them. It is also a lot faster : )

These two girls broke their records on the second try! Way to go! 

Ask your child to show you how to play Super Speed Math. It will be worth it! 

Today in math we reviewed odd and even numbers by playing memory. You can tell that I love group/partner work! 

Everyone is quickly getting into the swing of our normal schedule. Next week we will begin centers and our regular reading and math rotations. I will be creating a post this weekend about our star homework challenge! 

Have a great weekend! 

Spelling List - August 11th

For my friends that forgot their spelling list at school today :) 

Our First Week

Class in Rm. #110 has kicked off to a great start! It has been very exciting meeting each of my students. They all have such wonderful but different personalities! I can tell we have a lot of eager learners. Here is a picture of our first day together! 

I was busy and nervous on our first day that I forgot to take pictures of our activities. However, we had a great time drinking "jitter juice" after a read aloud of First Day Jitters. After reading the story and washing away our jitters we took a vote! How many students liked our jitter juice? I believe there were 19 that said they would drink it again! 

Unfortunately, we did have to go over our rules and procedures a LOT since it was the first few days of school. Good news is, they now have our Five Classroom Rules completely memorized (let's hope they don't lose it over the weekend). In case you aren't familiar with the Whole Brain Teaching Rules, you can access them  here. I will be using Whole Brain quite a bit in my classroom this year. I believe it is the best way to teach and motivate my students! 

Yesterday, we had a great time sharing our memory bags! I loved seeing and hearing the memories they each brought! A lot of our students had similar memories/items. It was neat to see them build those connections with one another! Here are some of our friends sharing their memories! 

We have had two scavenger hunts this year! Our first scavenger hunt happened yesterday. Students were asked to find different people in our classroom that liked or could do certain things. For example, find someone who has a dog! After direction, they all got the hang of it! Khushi, was the first person to find an answer for each question! I liked this activity because they were learning things about each other and getting to talk to someone other than their close friends! My shy kiddos really stepped up during this scavenger hunt! Yay! Today was our second scavenger hunt. This scavenger hunt tested their knowledge of our classroom. They had to find different things around the room (something tall, something that starts with a "m"). Fun times! 

Happy Birthday Danny! We celebrated our first birthday of the year today. Parents you are more than welcome to bring goodies for your child to share with the class on their birthday!

Danny said, "You can call me the chocolate monster!" 

Thank you parents for bringing in your forms so fast! We were given a compliment from the front office for being so speedy! 

We have had a great start to the year! 

Open House

I finally met my students! There are no words to describe by excitement! I can finally place a face with those names! 

Parents, thank you so much for coming to Open House last night. I know this is going to be a great year. I hope everyone got the information they needed but if not, please let me know so I can send that home with your student on Wednesday! 

Things I need on Wednesday are: 

Student Transportation Form - I need to know how your child will go home on the first day of school and for the rest of the year. 

Student Emergency Card (green piece of paper)

Student Technology Form (orange half slip) - Our library staff need this in order for students to use our computers and check out library books.

Email address -Please provide me with a valid email address so I can send blog updates, Natcher News, etc. 

Student Supplies - I know Wal-Mart is going to be hectic but I would like to have important student supplies (pencils, crayons, and glue) by the first day. 

Things I would like to have but are not required:

Student Information - This is just for our classroom so I can get to know your students as quickly as possible.

Volunteers - I know we are all busy but please let me know if you would be willing to help me with classroom duties throughout the year!

It is going to be a great year!